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Don't try to cancel your policy - unless your prepared to spend a fortune on calls and a £50 fee!

Home insurance no not published (or at least not very easily found on their website - the published no is for car insurance). This is a premium rate (8p minute) no. I was on the phone several minutes while the agent tried my policy no which didn't register on their system - it was only after she asked me about my vehicle that we both realised I was through to wrong dept - she put me through to home insurance, but it was Admiral! They then transferred me back to Elephant Car insurance, who then left me holding while they found the no for me - Elephant Home Insurance new policy no - it was only then I was transferred through to correct no where a very pleasant lady cancelled my policy BUT - there was a £50 charge for this as I am in the middle of the policy!

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AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE

I insured for two years with elephant, both for 12 months, and on each occasion I paid my premium up front.

At the end of year two I received a renewal confirmation - ie a price to continue - I wanted to explore different cover options so e-mailed them - I got no response.

At this point my vehicle was off the road on a SORN - so in the course of the next few weeks I get a few reminders that I haven't renewed (as my debit card details has expired) - then a letter and a few emails telling me my policy had been cancelled and that I owe them £96.60 in administration costs

This is now escalating and if I don't pay they will put the matter over to debt collectors which incurs further costs

I now realise what a poorly run company they are, thank god I did not need to make a claim. If you are listening Elephant.co.uk - my contract with you was for 12 months insurance that upon expiry terminated the contract - I will not be bullied into paying you a single penny for cover I do not want, and did not accept - so what gives you the right to insist I insure with you ???

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Elephant.co.uk mistakes... surprise surprise!

After problems with a payment in August, I paid the rest of my policy upfront to save any more hassle. For some reason they managed to cock this up and two weeks ago I was stopped for driving with no insurance!!?!? I had NO IDEA!! My car was seized, I was given an IN10 (£200 fine and 6points!) and left stranded in a different county. After a long phonecall they admitted this was an admin error and sent a letter explaining this, in the letter however they have stated that they are unable to issue a replacement Certificate of Motor insurance. Which means that instead of my endorsment and points being wiped off, I will end up having to go to court and have it put on my license as well as having my insurance premiums hiked up for the next 4 years. My car is still in a lock up as they won't let me collect it as my insurance won't cover me with a possible IN10 (the one they gave me!!). Costs wise I am probably at about £800 without the preium rate phone calls added on and they will not help me in anyway. Can't believe that a company is allowed to do this, insurance is so important and admin errors are unacceptable.

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Complete scam

I recently took out a policy with elephant after comparing prices on a popular website. I was looking to pay monthly for my insurance because i canot afford the total amount upfront. To do this is said i had to contact the proposer.I spoke to somebody at elephant who then said I had a choice to either split the amount over 10 months or 12 months however the split on 10 months would be slightly more per month however in the long run would work out cheaper.I chose to split my cover over 10 equal payments.I recieved my policy docs this morning and am now shocked to see it is only a ten month policy. If i put that into perspective it shows that they were in fact not the cheapest atall.watch out for this complete rip off con that they fail to make their customers aware of.I believe i have a mandatory cancellation period however in the docs it says my policay if cancelled is subject to a fee.

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Based on my experiences, I would highly reccomment elephant.co.uk

Last year I recieved my car insurance renewal quote from my usual broker who I had been with for years and was shocked at just how much it had gone up by - over £150!. I felt this was very high considering that I hadn't had any claims or convictions and am oevr 25 with a good no claims bonus. So I decided to shop around.

I used all of the usual interenet search engines and comparison websites and found that all of them wanted a similar price to my old broker. I had almost given up hope and had resigned myself to paying the higher price when I saw an advert for elephant.co.uk. I thought it had to be worth a try so I visited their website.

I found entered all of my details and they came up with a quote that was at least £100 cheaper than any other I had received. The cover level and conditions were the same, so I decided to go with them.

I found the site very easy and straight forward to use. Just enter the details they ask for and at the end you are given a quote. You can then choose to take this or leave the site. If, like me, you choose to go with them you then go to their payment screen and enter your payment details and the jobs done. A few days later I received all of the correct documents plus a welcome pack explaining all about my cover and policies.

A year later and my car insurance is due for renewal again. I received my quote through just the other day for £317. I always check with a few others, just in case I can get a better deal. After checking with 3 different comparison websites I found that this quote was cheaper by at least £120 and in some cases cheaper by as much as £400! for the same cover.

Although, luckily, I haven't needed to make a claim with elephant.co.uk, so far I have been very impressed by their service and customer care. I received my renewal letter with about a month to spare so have had plenty of time to look around.

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Do NOT insure with Elephant.co.uk

I would never deal with Elephant again. My insurance was due for renewal, the first I knew about it was when my card rejected their request for payment. I rang up to pay and found out that they hadn't taken into accout an SP30 and a pending claim against me after driving into the back of them. I also notified them by letter my change of address which they also had not taken notice of. When this was added to my premium it made it very expensive so it was cancelled on the day it was due for renewal. I now have a charge of £301.36 for not even 1 days insurance but for cancelling and last years policy not having the correct information due to their staffs incompetence. I had a mobile message asking me to ring them at extortonate phone charges so sent several emails asking them to phone me which they haven't, now I recieved an email threatening a debt collecting agency. I have now written to the financial ombudsman. DO NOT TAKE AN ELEPHANT POLICY>

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AVOID

Three months ago I was involved in a car accident that was absolutely no fault of my own, and as if that wasn't stressful enough, the handling of the situation by my car insurance company: Elephant.co.uk, has been nothing short of a living nightmare. I would not usually write a review of something having had one bad experience, but as my experience has been a catalogue of disasters over a period of time on their behalf, I feel as though my story is worth sharing! This review is the subject of their service and not of the website.

Recovery

Straight after the accident I returned home and called Elephant. After spending forty five minutes (and several pounds) on the phone, I hung up feeling confident that my claim would be dealt with quickly and efficiently - it was a clear cut case of no responsibility on my part, and at first Elephant seemed competent. Wow, was my opinion about to change. I was told that my car would be collected from the roadside within the hour and taken to a nearby garage, all I had to do was to meet them at the scene when Elephant called me back, to empty the vehicle. Six hours later I receive a call from the garage asking me why I wasn't at the scene - I had not yet received a call from Elephant, so I had no idea that they were waiting and they were about to leave minus the car! I managed to get there just in time, and I was told that the car was going to be taken fifty miles away - really handy!

Holding on...

As much as I enjoy a bit of culture, after what seems like hours listening to Fur Elise, I am sick of it! The shortest time I have had to wait on hold calling Elephant is six minutes, the longest time so far is eighteen minutes. I consider this to be unacceptable and completely unnecessary, especially when the call is costing you every second and there is no free phone number available.

Does anyone know what they are doing?

I was offered and accepted a hire car, but this also seemed to be a difficult issue for Elephant. As luck would have it, my insurance with Elephant ran out on the night of my accident therefore no one knew if I would be covered to drive a hire car. Three different people gave me differing advice from them trying to sell me a new policy to telling me to get cover on my husband's car insurance for the hire car. It was only when I spoke to the actual hire car company that they informed me that I would be covered by their insurance - surely Elephant should have known this?

Firstly I was told that I could keep the hire car for seven days after my claim is settled, then after I had had it for 22 days I was told that I was only entitled to it for 21 days throwing me into a complete panic, but then fortunately it went back to the original information, leaving me wondering if anyone there actually knew what was going on.

My settlement

It took three and a half weeks for Elephant to inform me that my car had been written off. It took a further week and endless chasing phone calls and emails to get a settlement figure - then another hour on the phone at my expense to get a more realistic figure. I was fortunate that I had bought my car at auction and had picked up a bargain, being the honest person that I am, I had declared what I paid for the vehicle when I took out the policy and so Elephant were adamant that they were not going to pay anymore even though I had proof that the car was worth £800 pounds more. They insisted that I sent them three quotes telling them the true value of the car (even though a quick Google search easily found the answer and I don't see why they couldn't have done this themselves). They were insisting that they would put me back into the same position as I had originally been in, and it took me quoting their own Terms and Conditions (to give you the market value of the vehicle) and a lot of arguing to get a decent sum. Many people might have given up the fight which is probably what they depend upon, but by that time I was so frustrated by their poor service that I would have stayed on the phone all night until I got what I wanted!

You're kidding me?!

This has to be the most unbelievable evidence of their incompetence. After six weeks I really wanted to get the matter wrapped up; I called Elephant - again - to find out the situation. I was told that the third party still hadn't admitted liability and Elephant would "soon" be writing them to give them three weeks notice to admit fault. They also said that they had not received witness statements so asked me to give the witnesses a call to try to hurry them up! I was absolutely flabbergasted and then they admitted that they hadn't even written to them yet for their statements despite being given their details on the day of the accident.

I have now spoken to dozens of people at Elephant, and each one sounds as miserable as the next. They can't be bothered to talk to you, answer your questions incorrectly and inaccurately and are on occasion extremely rude. I do not feel as though Elephant are working in my best interests as the customer and I am disgusted that I have had to continually call them to hurry things along. I have still not received my excess because the third party still haven't paid the claim, and as long as Elephant is in charge of the chasing of the funds, I am not expecting it any time soon.

Elephant might be one of the cheapest insurers around, but having had a dose of their customer service, I would rather have paid double for the policy if it meant that I might get a better service. It isn't often in life that you generally have to claim on a policy, but I have to say that this is the worst and most exhausting service that I have ever received.

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You'll end up with the sensation that an elephant has stamped down on your bank balance

Elephant.co.uk provides cheap cover, and based on this, I foolishly bought cover with them for 3 years. However, they are not the best for customer service. I wanted a diamond ring insured and they missed out an extra "0" at the end, effectively covering only 1/10th of the real value. When I called to have this ammended, it took 1 month to sort out. Worse thing of all, the insurance premium went up 10 fold to just under a £1000! Needless to say, I went elsewhere for a better quote that was a quarter of their price. The £50 cancellation charge is a bit excessive, but I wanted to get back as much money from this crap company. I will NOT be using them again. Avoid at all costs! My rating for this company is 0/5, but sadly the minimum I have to give here is a 1/5. I would gladly rate them lower if I had the option to do so!

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I took out car insurance with elephant.co.uk after being given an excellent quote from them via confused.com. I was told by a friend that they tended to give people quite low quotes at first and then hike the price up when it comes to renew. To be honest I haven't found that to be the case, in fact when I received my renewal quote it was around £100.

I have always found the customer service to be extremely helpful and paperwork has been send out quickly with all details correct.

I must admit I have not had to claim on my policy yet and perhaps my experiences might vary if (touch wood it never happens) but I have to make a claim. If my circumstances do chnage in this regard I will update this reveiw accordingly.

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I would say that this company is like an elephant, a big Dumbo....Elephant car insurance is delaying our car theft claim. Our car was stolen last year in September. The claim is still pending and since now the car is part of the evidence, the insurance is now using this as an excuse not to progressing with the claim. It has been 5 months and still they are delaying it.... I would say that this company is running by idiots and they will use all possible means to screw their customers. They do not have any consideration to their customers......

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DO NOT USE ELEPHANT - LISTEN TO THE MAJORITY OF REAL REVIEWERSThe good reviews on this website, I can only assume have been written by elehant staff expecting big bonuses this year because in my experience Elephant have been AWFUL & INCOMPETANTPros: Cheap Cons: Dont care about customers, Rubbish Legal Cover, Rude Staff, No contact made, high premiums - and finally EMPTY PROMISES I shall be reporting them to the FSA,Motor Insurance Bureau, and Watchdog for their behaviour.

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Good, But Could Be Better

I've used Elephant for a couple of things: Car insurance and travel insurance. They've been pretty good to me on both occasions.

With travel insurance I've found them to be pretty cheap and easy to arrange. I did it at short notice last time and as well as posting the documents out to me which I wouldn't have been able to get in time anyway, they emailed them to me so I'd have the certificate and points of reference should I be able to call on them. I haven't but it's nice to know they went that one step further to know that I was able to use it should I have needed to.

I use them mainly for car insurance. Again I've never had to rely on them as I haven't had an accident or theft in the four years I've had them. They can be pretty crafty with charges but if you use them wisely you can avoid them. For example, if you choose to pay monthly rather than annually then there is a huge increase in price. My advice to you is just stick it on a credit card if you have to and pay that off swiftly after because even with the interest your bank will charge you it doesn't come close to amounting to what they will add in interest. Secondly, if you move house or add any amendment to your motor insurance, then they levy a £15.00 charge to your annual cost. This can be frustrating and when I moved there was nothing I could do about it but it's a gentle word of warning should you decide to.

On the plus side their calling queues are short, they are based mainly in Cardiff although I have on a few occasions been placed into a calling queue abroad so you're likely to get someone who understands the complicated point you are trying to make, and a lot of things can be done over the website which is pretty user friendly. They also do a service when you can accumulate a year's worth of no claims in the space of ten months. This is great as it brings your premium down quicker but I'm unsure what this will do when I eventually try to change providers.

One other thing they do is automatically renew your policy and to be honest, this is the reason why I've never changed in the last four years and probably for them what they were hoping for. It's again a little crafty because you think to yourself "oh it's done now so I might as well live with it" but it's worth shopping around before they do that and complacency kicks in.

Personally, I think they are good and do the job they are asked to do by you well but they are a little sneaky with charges and this can artificially inflate the price when, for the sake of a piece of paper and a few keystrokes, it needn't

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AVOID OR YOU WILL REGRET IT IF YOU MAKE A CLAIM

The problems we had with Elephant have been numerous - my advice is do not insure with them, they may be cheap but if you have a claim you will regret it. I would go so far as to guess that the positive reviews on this site are not "genuine". I have a friend who has also had a nightmare with them. My accident was witnessed by two police officers, it took place in May and involved someone driving into my car whilst I was stationary so it would be a no-brainer from an insurance point of view, or so you might think... Elephant made the minimum effort to pursue the claim, did not contact the police as it costs them money to request a police report, the £20 we paid for legal protection we found out actually helps you in no way whatsoever, the claim was still outstanding at our renewal date at the end of September due to their lack of effort and they hiked up our renewal price from circa £200 to £600+. They justified this by saying our no claims had been reduced from 9 years to zero because we had an unresolved claim! When asked what happened to the protected no claims we paid for, she said oh yeah, I forgot about that! Tell me how a computer that calculates premiums can forget about it???? They also claimed we had not told them about a windscreen claim we made in 2006, which was in fact made this year (whilst we were insured with them) and they had just entered the date incorrectly on the computer. They also claimed we had tried to deceive them about the number of no claims years we had despite us having sent them proof when we took up the policy. All in all, they are a headache you can do without. We are back with More Than this year as we had no problems with them, we were just tempted by a (slightly) cheaper price. Never again. THE 1 STAR RATING I HAVE GIVEN IS ONLY BECAUSE THIS IS THE LOWEST RATING YOU CAN GIVE ON THIS SITE AND THERE IS NO OPTION TO CHOOSE ZERO STARS.

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Worth a look at for younger drivers

I have been driving for 3 years now but because of my age 24, my gender (Male) and my circumstances of not being rich (living in a not so good area), i find it very hard to find decent priced insurance. Ok, so i dont help myself wth having a 2 litre car.

I unfortunately had an accident that was my fault within 3 months of passing my test, but fortunatly started a job that i was given use of a company car with. This was great un until leaving the job a year later.

All the other insurers were coming up with quotes for no less than £2000 for the year fully comp, and most wouldnt insure me at all. Elephant quoted at £1200 but because i paid over direct debit 10 monthly installments this came to a total of around £1500, this was because of the credit interest and i also lost an intro bonus. I did however pay up til 4 months then paid the bulk of what was left, this way i got my intro bonus taken off the balance and the credit payments were around £70 , so i ended up paying £1270 for 10 months. Yes, 10 months, see below.

Yes Elephant are good for young drivers or drivers with no NCB (no claims bonus) as they give you the option of a standard 12 month policy or a 10 month acellerator policy which works out a little more expensive but it gives you a years no claims after 10 months. Please not, some insurers can be funny about this but most are ok as your policy actually just says 1 years no claims on your cert at the end of the term. They would have also let me use my company car 1 year NCB but for the fact that i had had an accident within 3 years, but if you have named driver exp its well worth asking about.

They offer free windscreen cover as standard and extras available are courtesy car, breakdown, legal cover. I dont know exact price but i got them to half the price after saying no until the very end when i took them out for "peace of mind".

Although they were the cheapest for young drivers they also had a mega excess, £750 voluntery (to get the price down) and £150 compulsory for under 25's. The compulsory vanishes after 25.

In my second year i got a cheaper quote from Admiral but because they are the same company they matched it and i stayed with Elephant, they said it was easier for their systems to stay as elephant which suited me. Admiral also had a lower £500 excess which they also matched.

I have been lucky enough to never have to use them to find out what their customer service is like but when finalising my details over the phone it was a pleasent experience.

All in all, young drivers dont have much choice but with the 10 month policy its well worth putting a phone call in to Elephant and just see what they offer.

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Cheap insurance pays off if you do not make regular claims.

Being a young driver (23) I dread the yearly week's worth of scouring the length and breadth of the internet and phonebook to try and find a better deal for my car insurance. I spend hours filling in online forms, listening to Lionel Richie down the phone, and generally getting fed up of people telling me I'm paying too much then failing to offer me anything better. However one way or another for the last two years this process has resulted in me choosing Elephant.co.uk as my insurer.

A lot of good and bad reviews have been posted on here that either rave about the price or complain about the service should something go wrong. I personally have never had a bump or scrape (touching wood as I type) through my 6 years of motoring, and thus I have never had to deal with elephant when things go wrong; but if it should I will happily endure a troublesome claims procedure knowing I saved myself a good chunk of money.

I look at it this way; through choosing elephant I can save between £250-£300 per year against the other major insurers (Direct line, Norwich Union, Tesco etc...), if I were to crash say once every three years then the cost of having fantastic customer service, a speedy claim procedure, and courtesy car would be up to £900 if I were to choose another company... This to me is bad math, given that there is also no guarantee that any other company would deal with it any better.

Obviously this is greatly tailored to my personal circumstances, but hopefully you can see my point.

Below I have decided to put my personal + and - for elephant.co.uk based on my experiences:

POSITIVES

+ PRICE - Obviously the main drawing point is that elephant are very good on price. This is however based upon paying for the policy in full on your renewal date... if you want to pay monthly have a look in my negatives section!

+ HAGGLING - The elephant team are incredibly quick to drop their price at the slightest bit of fuss, and will always aim to beat any other quote you have found. This means there is always room for a good old fashioned haggle.

+ ANWERING THE PHONE - I have found that no matter when or which department I call, I immediately get through to a real person who has been able to help me. From the accent I have to assume the call centre is in Ireland.

+ ONLINE ORDERING - The online forms are easy to fill in and can be tailored when you have finished to say add a second person, add extra cover or change your details (very handy to see what factors of your insurance are really costing you the most, and if you can live without them).

NEGATIVES

- PAYING MONTHLY - If you are going to go with elephant.co.uk DO NOT pay monthly. Given my one off payment quote of £850, I enquired as to how much it would be should I pay monthly instead... wait for it... £1150!! That works out at an extra 35%, and defiantly could be beaten by shopping elsewhere.

- RENEWAL PRICE - I'm sure this is true of many insurers but whatever you do, never except the renewal price given by elephant. In the example above I was originally quoted £1100 as my one off renewal price. I subsequently anonymously ran a quote though their own system online, and came up with £900! Thankfully as mentioned earlier they are very open to haggling, so when I called up and kicked up a massive fuss I got it down to £850, job done!

- ARE YOU YOUNG - If you are under 25 (which I am) fully comprehensive cover does not allow you to drive other cars with the owner's permission. This is true despite it not mentioning it anywhere in the policy booklet when I looked last September. I did try to say that I should be entitled to a discount given the loss of this feature within my policy, claiming that they are already subsidising the extra risk associated to my age in the high premium of my insurance... sadly they failed to see my logic on this matter.

- MATH - This is only based on one experience where I was contemplating paying the first two months of my policy on monthly instalments then paying off the rest in a lump sum. I called up three times and got back three different answers for the amounts it would cost me. Finally I did all the sums myself (after getting all the % information from them), and after another 45 min phone call, they agreed with me... then after all that I ended up paying it off in full anyway, but at least I learned to always challenge my insurer on their calculations.